Last year I dealt with December Depression by ignoring Christmas altogether and watching Die Hard. This year I'm taking a different approach. I'm hitting my X-mas Pinterest Board like it's a piñata on Nochebuena.

First up was the holiday village. I've wanted to make one for years. My family had some of these old glitter houses growing up, and I used to love setting them up on the windowsill with little bottle brush trees, a light stuck in every one.

Mr. Responsibility and I were trying to curb our nightly TV marathon, so we turned to the most logical alternative: building a village together. Unfortunately, we (re)discovered that I can be a bit of a micromanager. He did get a couple of roofs and some windows cut before I kind of took over. We've gone back to the Mindy Project at night, but I managed to finish these guys - all of the plans came from

Papers came from Paper Source, but all the rest can be done from the cereal boxes and Elmer's you already have. I think the Dutch liquor bottle houses are a nice touch.

Then there are the hand-knitted mini-sweaters. These seemed so cool and unusual when I started making them five years ago. Now they sell cuter ones at Michael's for 99 cents. So I finished up the white one this year and decided to call it a day. Each one took at least two hours for some reason, so they aren't even a satisfying speed:

2014

2011

2009

Next up were winter napkins - I'm a big believer in decor you can use for a whole season (in New England the cold one lasts for eight months) so I tried to make these more winter, with just a hint of Christmasality:

(you can get just about any hair/skin color combo), and glue gun the whole thing together with some polyfil for snow, but I love it, love it, love it, and will be happy to hang it on my door for years to come.

She's like an Olive Kitteridge gnome, made in Maine and everything.

My final projects are J's stocking and my winter quilt, but I'll save that for the next post - I mean, we're only half-way through December, right?